photo by: AP Photo/Jeff Dean

Wagner's Melvin Council Jr. gestures during the first half of the team's First Four college basketball game against Howard in the men's NCAA Tournament on Tuesday, March 19, 2024, in Dayton, Ohio.

Not a lot of basketball players come to Kansas with a catchphrase; in fact, not a lot of basketball players have catchphrases, period.

If his social media activity is any indication — he’s been seen repeating the same axiom after big wins at St. Bonaventure, on his visit to Kansas in April, mere moments before announcing he was going to be a Jayhawk — Melvin Council Jr. is determined to make this one happen.

“I’m going to announce my school, but first, you know I got to say my favorite line real quick, you know,” Council said on Instagram Live on April 16. “If you want to be a dog, you got to be a dog, because if you’re not a dog, you’re dog food.”

The line, like Council’s personality in general, has been readily embraced by the KU fan base in the months since his commitment.

He says the phrase represents his belief that “you got to have heart, and you got to have that dog to play basketball. You can’t be scared of nobody on the court. So that’s where it came from.”

Council said the line actually dates back to his time in junior college at Monroe College in New Rochelle, New York, but, he says now, “I was just quiet about it.”

He is evidently not quiet about it any longer.

There are multiple videos on social media from Council’s time with St. Bonaventure in which — upon receiving the Bonnies’ World Wrestling Entertainment-branded title belt as an individual honor in the locker room postgame — he yells the phrase at the top of his lungs and then he and his teammates start barking in unison.

“When I came to St. Bonaventure, my teammates was calling me out one-on-one,” Council said, “and I just started saying it more often, and I just ran with it.”

Sure enough, not long after his arrival in Lawrence, he was already deploying the old reliable line on his new teammates.

“We played up and down on Sunday, and I won, five-on-five,” Council said on Tuesday. “Had to use my line against them. And they was barking, so had to tell them, like, ‘Yeah, the dog is here.’ … It’s nothing but love at the end of the day, trying to make sure I get the best out of everybody. So you know, people may say it’s talking junk, but it’s all love at the end of the day. And as long as we can all be one family, we’ll be good.”

On the court, Self has said on multiple occasions that Council, a rangy 6-foot-4 guard, is reminiscent of former KU standout Tyshawn Taylor.

“He’s a superior athlete who can score the ball and has the potential to be one of the more elite defenders that we’ve had in recent memory,” Self said in a press release announcing Council’s signing.

Council, for his part, believes he fits well with Self because Self has deployed tenacious “dog”-type players in the past. Council named Mario Chalmers and Gradey Dick as examples.

“To play at the highest level, you got to have heart,” he said. “If you don’t have heart, you don’t belong here. And I have heart.”

Council is originally from Rochester, New York, where he attended University Prep. At Monroe College, he was a two-time junior-college All-American and the school’s all-time leading scorer; he then spent one year on Staten Island at Wagner, leading the Seahawks to an NCAA Tournament victory in the First Four, before leaving for St. Bonaventure. With the Bonnies, he averaged 14.6 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.1 steals.

That amounts to, of course, four years in college, but like former Jayhawk David Coit and a host of other players around college basketball, Council is a beneficiary of the NCAA’s waiver that granted former JUCO players who would have run out of eligibility following the 2024-25 campaign an additional season to play.

Council actually grew up a Duke fan, but it didn’t take a lot of convincing for him to come to KU, which he picked over Georgia, Georgia Tech and Mississippi State. He cited the prestige of the program and its coaching staff, as well as the opportunity to play alongside nationally renowned talent Darryn Peterson (who, by the way, he said is taller than he expected).

“Once I found out about that, just looking at his film and stuff like that,” Council said, “just wanted to be around somebody that’s got that dog in him and (wants to) win, so why not come to Kansas and fit in with that?”

In doing so, he’s going somewhere that people from central New York usually don’t.

“A lot of people from Rochester, they’re good at basketball, some people went Division I, Division II, but nobody really came to this stage,” Council said. “Coming from Rochester, that means a lot. Got the city behind me, and I just want to prove to everybody, inner-city Rochester kids, that you guys can make it out of Rochester just like me.”

Council can turn a phrase, even one that doesn’t necessarily have to do with dog food. He says he tells people he’s “a star in the dark,” in the sense that nobody knows him, at least not yet.

“So I’m glad, but they’re going to know me this year,” he added.